Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park Photo Gallery by Ruth Moorhead at pbase.com

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

A precipitously narrow, deep chasm has been built by the Gunnison River through shadow-darkened granite, schist, gneiss, and pegmatite,
showing startlingly-wide veins of quartz in places. We shoehorned several inquisitive forays into the few evening and morning hours
that we were away from the yellowjacket-ridden campground on the south side. Alongside the river, reached by a narrow, 16% grade,
we saw a presentation about the building of the river-diversion tunnel through the mountains to the valley below. After dinner, a ranger talked
about the history and evolving philosophy of camping, and during and after moonset, we viewed nebulae and star clusters
between streaking Perseid meteors.

Next morning, after a few rim viewpoint forays of our own, we used a geology lecture as a great way to get close to the rim
in several other places for more views into the canyon. On our second trip there, we visited the north rim, again stopping
at all the viewpoints and being amazed/dismayed at how steep-sided and darkened the canyon was in the late-afternoon light.

A Sample of the Blackness	River Level, East Portal	Gunnison River



		Painted Wall	Quartz Streaks, Painted Wall

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